Resplendent Avialan raptor Feedback

Comments

The price is insane. I'm not spending another dime of real money in the gemstore.

Respectfully, if we spend our gems on lower-priced items, that will show ANet what we're interested in. I buy discounted items a lot, bought the Spooky Day mounts pack (5 skins for 1600 gems), for example.

Between the RNG and overpriced mount skins, I had pretty much decided I was going to stick with purchasing discounted store items (I, too, purchased the Spooky mount bundle). To show what I think of as prices on the more reasonable end. That gem store has been feeling a little crazy lately what with the mount skins and those overpriced bundles.

Gems are the source of income for arenanet, mount skins are just cosmetic, don't add to gameplay. they could add a 10,000 gem skin and it wouldn't matter, because it's how they keep the game up and why you can have a solid experience while playing year after year, with tons of free content updates/expansions, and so much to do.

The price is insane. I'm not spending another dime of real money in the gemstore.

Respectfully, if we spend our gems on lower-priced items, that will show ANet what we're interested in. I buy discounted items a lot, bought the Spooky Day mounts pack (5 skins for 1600 gems), for example.

Between the RNG and overpriced mount skins, I had pretty much decided I was going to stick with purchasing discounted store items (I, too, purchased the Spooky mount bundle). To show what I think of as prices on the more reasonable end. That gem store has been feeling a little crazy lately what with the mount skins and those overpriced bundles.

Yeah! I bought 2 Storage expansions last week, but i'm not touching any of the other stuff until i see changes. Also, i can't in good faith advise my friends to play GW2 anymore, they know that something i praise is usually fair microtransactions, and right now, GW2's gem store is getting a bit greedy for my taste.

@Xbon.9086 said:
Gems are the source of income for arenanet, mount skins are just cosmetic, don't add to gameplay. they could add a 10,000 gem skin and it wouldn't matter, because it's how they keep the game up and why you can have a solid experience while playing year after year, with tons of free content updates/expansions, and so much to do.

It would matter if no one bought it, because then they'd be getting nothing.

Of course I don't know the actual numbers but if Anet gets 2,000 gems each from 100 players for this item, but that price puts off a further 200 who would have paid 800 gems for it then they're actually losing 40,000 gems worth of sales.

It's difficult to work out the ideal price range, especially for cosmetic virtual items where the cost of creating them is the same whether you make and sell 1 or 1 million and where the value to the consumer is entirely subjective. But it's absolutely not a matter of higher prices = more profits. If you price things too high you put off potential customers and then you can end up losing money, even if the remaining ones are spending more than they would otherwise.

Why do you think so many charities run those adverts where they ask for "just £3 a month" (or equivalent in other currencies). Shouldn't they be asking for £30? Or £300? There will be people who are willing and able to give that much or even more. But finding one person willing to give £300 can actually be much harder than finding 100 people willing to give £3. And they're often less likely to give another £300 next month, or need a lot more attention to persuade them. In the long run you can actually get more money by aiming to get a little from a lot of people than by targeting purely the big spenders.

Danielle Aurorel - Desolation EU. Mini Collector.

"I know that I'm born and I know that I'll die, the in-between is mine."

@Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209 said:
I think the skin looks great. Its not my taste, but the detail and such looks solid. I can't wait to see them in-game. I do agree the price tag is a little steep...I think its well worth 1000 gems...maybe even 1250. But it all comes down to how much is it worth to those who REALLY want it. Same reason I did not go with the RNG skin boxes...not worth it to me.

But would they not make more profits by selling it at a lower price and sell more of it?

Once the mount is designed, the production cost is 0$ . It's not like a physical product where you have to take into account the material production costs to decide of the pricing.

@MissMajor.8290 said:
Unpopular opinion here, but I am very pleased with this mount skin. I too would agree 2000 gems is a bit expensive even considering I don't shy from spending irl money in video games by any means, but I saw it, thought it was super cute and pretty so I bought it. The previous Reforged Warhound I found to be terribly ugly and I could never see myself spend $25 dollars on anything of the like. The Resplendent Avialan raptor though was too lovely for me to pass up. I don't see myself making a habit out of buying mount skins at this price mind you. I'll give my kudos for this pretty bird (whom I've named Lambert) nontheless.

Same here. I like it

2000 gems is not really expensive for a totally different mount. It is not just a re-skin like those adoption licenses. When I first saw the raptor mount, I wondered why many said it is cool looking, I just don't like it and that is the main reason why I am very reluctant to use it unless I am on a bounty or hp train.

Besides, this is far better than 'gambling' away your gems only to get 1 cool skin and 9 ugly others you don't need or like.

@MissMajor.8290 said:
Unpopular opinion here, but I am very pleased with this mount skin. I too would agree 2000 gems is a bit expensive

I don't think your opinion is unpopular or even the minority. I think many people here are saying the skin by itself is not ugly, just too expensive - which is pretty much what you are saying too.

Aye, I'm fairly sure that's the mainstream opinion, really.

I was on the fence at first. My initial impression was that it's very pink, but having seen it in-game in a variety of dyes I like it more than I did.

It reminds me of the Spring Promenade Outfit on female characters. The default dyes are IMO a bit of an eye sore and with my main characters outfit dyes it's not much better, but then I saw someone wearing it in-game and almost didn't recognise it because it looked so different even though all they'd changed was the colours.

Danielle Aurorel - Desolation EU. Mini Collector.

"I know that I'm born and I know that I'll die, the in-between is mine."

@Leo G.4501 said:
To me, I think it should be perfectly reasonable to look at these skins and desiring them but not wanting to spend the gold/gems/cash for them or if you REALLY want to get the skin because you adore it, you can farm/save for it. Whales will just buy them all while normies will not buy them or only buy a very specific skin.

Again, to me, how is it any different from a player who has the skill/time to farm up legendary backpieces and those backpieces being out of reach for someone who cannot invest that type of time/effort to get the same prestige skin?

The difference is that you can work very slowly towards the legendary items. This skin is "limited time only" and if that is the same time frame as the Reforged Warhound then people who don't have the resources this week can't get it. (Maybe next week. Could last two weeks. Won't be here a solid year, though).

This is true. I'm sure there will be multiple opportunities to purchase them (there will likely be a rotation going after they get the single unique skin for each mount through once) but there is also the possibility for sales. But I was mainly talking about the big spenders/farmers who likely have disposable income or 4k gold saved up with another 5k gold stored as materials.

@Danikat.8537 said:
Seeing the raptor in-game (when I finally found some, they're like buses, none for ages then 3 in LA all together) has actually made me more tempted to get it.

But I'm still not sure I can justify spending so much on it. No it's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but there's a lot of other things I want to buy with both my real money and my gold. (Weekend tickets to a music festival, plus 3 other concerts 2 of which are abroad, plus Christmas gifts for about 30 people and a Nintendo Switch amongst other things with the cash and the rest of the griffon collection, a commander tag and a lot of mini pets with the gold.) If it was sticking around I'd probably calculate how much cash I can spend on it, save up gold for the remainder and buy it. But I doubt I'll have time to do that.

I would just not buy it if I were you. Not because I feel it is overpriced (because I do) but because there will be other skins, there will be lowered prices eventually. Unless you want to be a part of the "Got it 1st" crowd, it's not a big deal to wait.

I just hope the Skimmer or Springer unique mount they release isn't pure awesome because I can't be spending money right now

@Xbon.9086 said:
Gems are the source of income for arenanet, mount skins are just cosmetic, don't add to gameplay. they could add a 10,000 gem skin and it wouldn't matter, because it's how they keep the game up and why you can have a solid experience while playing year after year, with tons of free content updates/expansions, and so much to do.

It would matter if no one bought it, because then they'd be getting nothing.

Of course I don't know the actual numbers but if Anet gets 2,000 gems each from 100 players for this item, but that price puts off a further 200 who would have paid 800 gems for it then they're actually losing 40,000 gems worth of sales.

Well, they're 1-time purchased skins. I don't think it matters too much if they only sell 100 now so long as they can leverage its exclusivity over time and with sales.

@Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209 said:
I think the skin looks great. Its not my taste, but the detail and such looks solid. I can't wait to see them in-game. I do agree the price tag is a little steep...I think its well worth 1000 gems...maybe even 1250. But it all comes down to how much is it worth to those who REALLY want it. Same reason I did not go with the RNG skin boxes...not worth it to me.

But would they not make more profits by selling it at a lower price and sell more of it?

Once the mount is designed, the production cost is 0$ . It's not like a physical product where you have to take into account the material production costs to decide of the pricing.

Again, I don't see the difference between Legendary Backpieces and this. I'm sure creating those backpieces required some money to make and they'll remain exclusive to players who spend a large amount of time in those game-modes vs someone who doesn't. They mentioned having mount variety and exclusivity was a goal.

@Healix.5819 said:
As a general rule, if the mount isn't a simple retexture or modification, it's going to cost 2000 gems. They didn't randomly choose that number, it's simply the standard price for mounts in the major MMOs.

You're not wrong... The issue is that ALL those games (WoW, FFXIV, etc) have more mounts as ingame rewards than in the cosmetic store. The day Arena Net starts doing that, then people won't complain, because there's alternatives.

And that's not the only issue, in WOW's store a pet is 10USD, a single cosmetic crown item costs 15USD. So there's already a difference in how things are valued. You can't have Outfits at 800 Gems, Gliders at 700, and 5 mount packs at 2000, and then tell us that a single mount skin is worth 2000 gems. There's a huge disparity in there.

So yeah, i'm voting with my wallet, and i can tell a lot of people are as well. Looking just at the ammount of people i've seen with Forged Warhound compared to all other mounts, i doubt they are getting even close to the sales figures of the ugliest gliders in the game.

Yep, other MMOs might also sell mounts for $25, but those MMOs also have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of other mounts you can earn through playing the game. These aren't "premium" mounts, because saying something is "premium" indicates they are better and therefore warrant a higher price than what is otherwise available. But that's all we have in GW2: Pay $25 for the mount you want or $5 for a 3%-50% chance at a mount you want, likely causing you to spend just as much or more. Give us some "non-premium" options we can earn through, you know, actually playing the game, and I doubt they'd be getting this much backlash every time they add a new mount to the store. Every other MMO does this, why can't GW2?

First, the mount skin is not bad, though for 2,000 gems I would expect a bit more. Such as better special effects; an aura, footsteps, sound effects, etc. It would also be cool to see a mount emote where you can press a key and the mount will do a specific action unique to that skin.

I understand where Anet is coming from for their current price point, via other MMOs (WoW and TERA to name two). I highly doubt this is in relation to the reactions that were received over the RNG mount system, that would be a bit childish and unprofessional. The main issue I have with the current price point is that it is for a mount skin and not a brand new mount/ creature like a spider.

At most I would be fine with 800-1,000 gems for this type of quality mount, because it does not offer enough "flair" to me.

Last, Anet has probably noticed by now (one can only hope) that they dug themselves a decent size hole with the Halloween mount skin bundle. Not taking into account that it was on sale, it was priced at 2,000 gems for 5 skins coming out to 400 gems a skin. This makes it very difficult to justify 2,000 gems for 1 mount that also has minimal flair added to it.

Outfits typically cost 700 gems, so I would value a mount skin at around the same price. 2,000 gems is far too high for a single skin. That's the cost of one of those "appearance pack" combos that includes an armor skin, glider skin, weapon skin, total makeover kit and some dye packs.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Taking the risk of beating up a dead horse, i'll have to address the issue with this:

It's not worth 2000 gems.

Come on Arena Net... This again?
Look, here's the deal, the skin is kinda neat, and all, but it's not GREAT

Literally how I felt when I opened the store. Oh thats nice, 2000? NOPE

Are mount skins exclusive to cash cows, or do they want to sell in higher volume? Because whoever sets prices for their goods is really really off the mark. I would give 700 gems nothing more for this.

@Healix.5819 said:
As a general rule, if the mount isn't a simple retexture or modification, it's going to cost 2000 gems. They didn't randomly choose that number, it's simply the standard price for mounts in the major MMOs.

You're not wrong... The issue is that ALL those games (WoW, FFXIV, etc) have more mounts as ingame rewards than in the cosmetic store. The day Arena Net starts doing that, then people won't complain, because there's alternatives.

And that's not the only issue, in WOW's store a pet is 10USD, a single cosmetic crown item costs 15USD. So there's already a difference in how things are valued. You can't have Outfits at 800 Gems, Gliders at 700, and 5 mount packs at 2000, and then tell us that a single mount skin is worth 2000 gems. There's a huge disparity in there.

So yeah, i'm voting with my wallet, and i can tell a lot of people are as well. Looking just at the ammount of people i've seen with Forged Warhound compared to all other mounts, i doubt they are getting even close to the sales figures of the ugliest gliders in the game.

Yep, other MMOs might also sell mounts for $25, but those MMOs also have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of other mounts you can earn through playing the game. These aren't "premium" mounts, because saying something is "premium" indicates they are better and therefore warrant a higher price than what is otherwise available. But that's all we have in GW2: Pay $25 for the mount you want or $5 for a 3%-50% chance at a mount you want, likely causing you to spend just as much or more. Give us some "non-premium" options we can earn through, you know, actually playing the game, and I doubt they'd be getting this much backlash every time they add a new mount to the store. Every other MMO does this, why can't GW2?

But can you dye those non-premium mounts? And if not, how many of those dozens/hundreds of mounts are reskins with color variations?

@Healix.5819 said:
As a general rule, if the mount isn't a simple retexture or modification, it's going to cost 2000 gems. They didn't randomly choose that number, it's simply the standard price for mounts in the major MMOs.

Yeah, just because other are stupid and greedy we're gonna do that, too?
That doesn't make it any less awful and thanks to the six, there's more and more talk that regulatory law needs to step into this topic (ok, the RNG/Lootbox thingy, but putting on tighter regulations on that wouldn't hurt either)
This remembers me of the ol' tale your parents used to tell ya – maybe they didn't tell you, dunno, no offence but: 'if the other kids jump from that bridge, you jump, too?'

This brings us back to all the talk of greediness with microtransactions.
One thing is clear, it's not needed in any way. Look at Hollywood. They have multimillion dollar productions rollin off of their production lines like crazy, but they found enough ways to come around the thing, to charge a stupid amount of cash at the box office (well... let's not get TOO much into this), at least they're not coming up to you in the middle of the film saying: 'Hey, if you wanna see the really cool stuff, that be 10 bucks more!'

Mounts are far more than a speed boost—they're a whole new way to explore the world of Tyria while we explore & exploit your wallet.
Explore freely by leaping across canyons and Anet's insane profit margin made possible by player's vanity which is exactly what Anet is betting on.
Heart of Thorn- $49.99, Path of Fire - 29.99 Just when you thought Anet was becoming reasonable. Here's how they were able to lower the price of the second expansion, by creating new $25.00 US skins such as Resplendent Avialan & Reforged Warhound!!! $33.00 Canadian for a skin, are you out of you're frack'en mind Anet? A skin really $4.00 less than a whole expansion!!! You give a new meaning to the word profit margin.
I was gonna buy the Avialan, I thought that with player's reactions that you would become more reasonable but I see now that MO is suffering from currency fever, the player's currency.
My post is making me reflect right now I have a hard time getting myself motivated for LS4 even after waiting 2 months. I know it's Istan I love Istan but Anet's marketing is over the top greed and leaving a sour taste in my mouth. I'm going to watch Colony 2 right now good night.
My wallet is now permanently closed, except for expansions but for how long?
Meaning how long will it take for the player-base to loose their tastes even for an expansion...

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Taking the risk of beating up a dead horse, i'll have to address the issue with this:

It's not worth 2000 gems.

Come on Arena Net... This again?
Look, here's the deal, the skin is kinda neat, and all, but it's not GREAT, i might use it on my mesmer, because mesmers are peacocky and all, but that's it...
Now do you really think that a SINGLE SKIN is worth the same amount of gems as a pack that holds an outfit + glider + back skin + dyes + Total Make Over Kit + Unique-ish weapon skin, not to mention the same value as a pack of 5 different mount skins?
Did you sell enough of the Warhound to make you think that people will buy stuff at this price? I personally saw like 3 Warhounds in-game since they were released, so i'm assuming not that many were sold.
Or is this pettiness over the feedback on the previous mount skin release?

Jup, me too.

I heard about a new mount on the store and thought: 'Nah, with all the backlash lately, they just aren't... oh boy, they are!'

That just left me puzzled with a big kitten?! on my face.I really don't enjoy playing the game right now anymore. I was really looking forward to LS4, but after this I didn't even bother to look into the story or even travel to the new areas. Yeah, I might be a little emotional on this, but if you fell in love with something, the wakeup call is all so much more hurting.
It's this disrespect to us players that's just... well, and I also can't even find the right words anymore.
It's like when you met someone and you thought everything is peachy, but then you slowly come to notice they're no different then all these other faceless things out there. -_-

Seriously ANet, you're listening to any cat content and can post an instant reply, so you must notice what's going on here!

Maybe I missed it mentioned, but how many dye channels does this new mount skin have?
(It said you could dye the particle effect but not whether there were 2 or 4 dye channels in total)

Anyway, for feedback: it's not random chance/gambling, so it's a considerably better situation in my opinion, even if it is really expensive. I can't imagine buying it myself, not for that price. Personally, I'm still holding out for nice four dye channel mount I can choose that is a reasonable price (500-700 gems - or maybe a wintersday bundle at 1600 like the spooky set). But, for a niche character theme (probably Mesmer related), I could see someone splurging on this if they knew they would get a lot of enjoyment out of it. It's definitely not a micro purchase though. I'ts more of a "I want this and will only get this one thing, instead of a bunch of different gem store purchases." I don't imagine seeing many of them around, but_ I am_ happy not to see new RNG-gated mounts.

@Matick.4132 said:Seriously ANet, you're listening to any cat content and can post an instant reply, so you must notice what's going on here!

Currently they are pretty engaged celebrating on reddit. No time to react to topics like this on the official forums.

But since the whole skingate and despite MO's answer (who by the way isn't game director anymore, just read the thread on reddit) then the rng-element in the pack and now the overpriced single skin I wonder whether it really is Arenanet who decides and sets the prices in the shop or rather NCSoft demanding it?

Edit:
It's not NCSoft.

Hi,

As I wrote in my previous response, it’s been a wonderful challenge to support all Living World and Live content development for a game of this size, for five years and counting, purely through the sale of optional microtransactions. We laid out our guiding principles for GW2 microtransactions in March 2012 and we've held true to them ever since. My motivation is to continue to stay true to those principles while also continuing to fund Live content development. I recently apologized for our missteps with the Mount Adoption License. Still, mount skins are purely cosmetic, thus in many ways an ideal embodiment of our goal to support the game with optional microtransactions.

Most of us have two relationships with the GW2 gem store. One relationship is that of a customer: we purchase things when we want them for ourselves and agree with how they’re bundled and priced. Another relationship is that of an interested party: we know that ArenaNet funds Live development through the sale of gems for cash, and we enjoy playing new content like today’s release, so we hope that the gem store does well enough to keep supporting content development. We might say, “I wouldn’t buy that!”, but if enough people buy it that it supports ongoing Live development, we’re still happy.

Mount skins are style items, and style items have some unique challenges. They’re subject to individual taste, so except for the very flashiest items, individual style items will have limited sales. Also, GW2 isn’t setup to support an enjoyable experience of browsing through a large catalog of style items, so players tend not to do that. What our data shows is that higher-priced flashy individual items can work, and lower-average-price-per-item bundles can work, but lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game. And the whole point of these items is to support the game.

GW2 is a content-rich online world with no monthly fee, so it’s a great overall value, with microtransactions doing the heavy lifting of funding continued development of the game. It shouldn’t also be our goal to have the lowest-priced microtransactions. In that case, the only logical outcome would be that we could afford to make less content than other developers, and I think that’s not what any of us are looking for. I love our current pace of content development and I hope we can support it for a long time to come.

We’re all in this together. It’s obvious in your posts that you’re thoughtful and motivated to see the game do well. You balance between loving the game and not always agreeing with how gem store items are bundled or priced. That’s fair. We have a commerce team that lives that dilemma every day. We’re all doing our best for the long-term health of the game.

Thank you all for your passion, and again, thank you for your continued support of Live development.

It's an eyeful, sure and true, but For 2000 gems I hope it slices, dices, and makes julienne fries. I'd happily spend 400 gems on one of the plainer looking raptor skins, if anet would condescend to sell me one instead of a chance for one. Oh, well.

@ReaverKane.7598 said:
Taking the risk of beating up a dead horse, i'll have to address the issue with this:

It's not worth 2000 gems.

Come on Arena Net... This again?
Look, here's the deal, the skin is kinda neat, and all, but it's not GREAT, i might use it on my mesmer, because mesmers are peacocky and all, but that's it...
Now do you really think that a SINGLE SKIN is worth the same amount of gems as a pack that holds an outfit + glider + back skin + dyes + Total Make Over Kit + Unique-ish weapon skin, not to mention the same value as a pack of 5 different mount skins?
Did you sell enough of the Warhound to make you think that people will buy stuff at this price? I personally saw like 3 Warhounds in-game since they were released, so i'm assuming not that many were sold.
Or is this pettiness over the feedback on the previous mount skin release?

Jup, me too.

I heard about a new mount on the store and thought: 'Nah, with all the backlash lately, they just aren't... oh boy, they are!'

That just left me puzzled with a big kitten?! on my face.I really don't enjoy playing the game right now anymore. I was really looking forward to LS4, but after this I didn't even bother to look into the story or even travel to the new areas. Yeah, I might be a little emotional on this, but if you fell in love with something, the wakeup call is all so much more hurting.
It's this disrespect to us players that's just... well, and I also can't even find the right words anymore.
It's like when you met someone and you thought everything is peachy, but then you slowly come to notice they're no different then all these other faceless things out there. -_-

Seriously ANet, you're listening to any cat content and can post an instant reply, so you must notice what's going on here!

You seem to have too much of your happiness dependent on gemstore items, I mean if not buying a gemstore skin today ruined your day then you might have an issue. The mount is over priced for me, I won't buy it, you need to relax.

Thank you all for your passion, and again, thank you for your continued support of Live development.
~ MO
What support don't you get it you've lost mine permanently because of your greedy $25.00 a skin fiasco...!

Although I wont be paying 2000 gems for it as I feel it is too much, if this is the pricing they came to in order to keep the doors open and keep pushing out content then as long as it is not thrown into some dodgy rng gamble/loot box then im ok with it.

I wont ever be paying that much for any mount skin, but it is obviously not aimed at me. Since there is no monthly fee and these are purely cosmetic and optional, I do not have as much of a problem with the price as the op seems to have. If the price of an item is the biggest gripe we have about the GW2 cash shop, then it can't be that bad considering how awful it can be when you consider what some other mmo's do with their cash shops.

People said they wouldn't do RNG with mounts skins and people said they would pay more for mounts with non-RNG elements . Just buy it or don't. Vote with your money. It's not like you can't complete the game without it. The whole argument is a dead horse now. Let it rest.

What does that even mean? Of course if there isn't a large catalog of style items, which I think is a problem right there, players won't have an enjoyable experience browsing through it. Am I misunderstanding this statement? And from the same post, also from MO:

What our data shows is that higher-priced flashy individual items can work, and lower-average-price-per-item bundles can work, but lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game.

Am I also to understand from what he posted that we can expect fewer lower priced items and more higher priced ones and bundles? That is the exact opposite of what I'd want to see.

Actually... has anyone seen anybody in that new raptor skin? Except for the Dulfy video, I haven't seen anyone with it.
That Mecha Ram Jackal I've seen at least like... maybe 5 or so people total with it since it's release.

Ascalon Will Prevail!

I appreciate how much work you guys put into this game but the last two big things to come out of the new expansion have been about money. Im losing faith in this game and this did not help. It seems like this game has finally fallen into the "get as much money out of them as possible before they jump ship" mode of plenty of other games. You are hurting yourself and your customers. I really do understand why you brought in mounts now and honestly I dont think it was for the fans I think it was a way for you to fatten your wallets. They are just cash cows to you. As pretty as they are I refuse to buy anything from you guys for awhile and hopefully the dollars in the long run will matter and the lack there of. Please fix this before you lose more to this.

This isn't as bad as the rng box, mostly cause it doesn't play with frustration of the buyers, so certainly it won't be as damaging to the game in the long run as the other option. still is too expensive. I do understand a-net point of view with the legendary skins though...

To people saying that the communitty doesn't know what it wants... of course not cause it's tons of different individuals, not because one person is against super expensive skins where you can choose is the same sentiment of everyone who opposed RNG. Plus, the outcry for this is significantly less.

still, 3 suggestions regarding mount skins in general that IMO will help making them more enjoyable consumer side while keeping the price tags.

a) Create 5 re-skins with some decent patterns that still don't take too much time and replace the 3-4 dye channel vanilla skins in the license adoption for this ones. Add the vanilla skins with more dye channels as in game collection rewards.
Reasoning: this would help somewhat with the ingame reward drought that some people experience, plus being an incentive to play more of the game (imo collections with good rewards is the best way to incentive further playing the game withouth turning it into a grindfest). Additionally people who already bought them with adoption license still get something unique, and finally it gives an decent ingame alternative to people that didnt wanted to pay 2000 gems for a skin anyways. (also even if im interested in the peacock, some of my characters would still be better with the raptor)

b) Legendary skins either always available, or available for longs period of time.
Reasoning: this stuff is expensive, but having them available for long time (longer than outfits) would let the consumer who probably can spend only 800 or 1600 gems in a skin more time to grind gold for the difference (this kind of consumer wouldnt have bought the skin at 2000 anyways)... plus for us who don't have tons of monnies to spend everytime one of those skins drops, large purchase are usually better if you have more time to plan for them.

c) the adoption license lets you choose the mount type.
Reasoning: would greatly reduce the consumer frustration upon purchasing and not getting the skin they wanted if they at least get a nice skin for the mount the beforehand planned to bling bling. plus is probably the option that screw the less people who already purchased. (and in general less frustration benefit everyone IMO since it keeps the game less toxic, and less unfounded hate is thrown at the mounts spenders):

The main reason I drop real monnies in the gemstore is rather to support the game than to get the shinnies, so frankly for me is not a big deal, but even then still can be slightly disheartening than after purchasing 960 gems (1600 minus phoenix armor) and even turning all my gold into gem, i'm still unable to get a guaranteed fully dyeable raptor skin (plus is not like there arent other stuff in the gemstore i want like characater slots or makeover kits)

Bonus Track: Once youve decided and implemented the total number of mounts in game, maybe you can distribute them across the year (for example january and february for griphon, march and april for raptor, etc...) and make those timeframes the month of the raptor where all the legendary skins of the raptor are made avaiable for purchase. so people have even more time to plan those purchases.

@Drecien.4508 said:
All I'm gonna say is be careful what you wished for. Changes were made. Live with them. 😂🤣

What changes? This release was planned before Mountgate. Nothing changed as a result of any feedback by consumers. All you need do to realize this is to look at the 2K gem fiery goat of doom jackal skin.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. -- Santayana

My feedback: ugly as hell, which is good, because the price is insane. I really, really loved the Forged raptor skin, but I refused to buy it for that price. And I will keep refusing to buy "exclusive" mount skins at that price.

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:
you had the opportunity to buy skins over a period of time for 400 gems each

No that is blatantly false.

We had the opportunity to gamble for skins at 400 Gems per "spin".

Nice trying to blame the players for Anet's terrible business practices as of late though. Super class act, man. This insane pricing is in no way or form the "fault" of the playerbase.

No sorry to burst that bubble but you are the one wrong here... every skin in the pack had a 400gem value. It was a collection just like the football card or pokemon systems you see for kids. The fact you might only of wanted one of the collection and ignore the fact that each purchase cost the same and provided a different skin, each time is down to you.

You go into these things with both eyes open. The skins are subjective in that different players like different skins for differing reasons, so it was never put out there as a "one skin for all" sale it was a collection for all that you could obtain either straight away in one large purchase or take your time and spend 400 gems when you want..

We have now had 2 skins put out for high value gems prices, and this is likely just the beginning.
But hey if you feel its worth the price tag then, like me, do your talking with your wallet.